Wednesday, May 7, 2008

it's an all-you-can-link buffet

The final toll from yesterday: seven hours, 20 innings, a vicious sunburn and absolutely no food. Some days, sportswriting isn't the greatest profession on the planet.

One humorous note before we start linking today: I've started listening to Dan Patrick's live audio stream recently, if only because I really miss listening to him and Olbermann on weekday afternoons when I was on my way to work. Anyway, the live stream features some, um, "different" types of commercials in between segments, including one hilarious ad where Ryan Seacrest advertises something called RAADD, which I believe stands for Recording Artists Against Drunk Driving. That's exactly what's going to dissuade from drunk driving, by the way: listening to a guy from Hollywood tell me why I shouldn't. Is Paris Hilton a member of RAADD? What about Lindsay? Britney? I'm dying to know more about this organization.

One other note: Sportsouth is currently re-running an old broadcast of the 1993 LSU-'Bama game, when the Tigers ended Alabama's unbeaten streak at Bryant-Denny. Weird game. Barker was hurt, and David Palmer played most of the game under center. Taurus Turner just carried the ball for 15 yards, which may have been the highlight of his career. Really bizarre.

But we move on ...-- Who's No. 1 in college football, according to the guy with college football in his name? Well, he does work for the Atlanta papers, of course. For what it's worth, he likes Auburn at No. 10. I don't like UGA to win it all, incidentally -- the schedule's too tough. At South Carolina, at Arizona State, at LSU, at Auburn ... and that's not even counting potentially dangerous home games against Central Michigan, Alabama, a re-tooled Georgia Tech and their annual war against Florida.

-- A tough break for UAB football: APR takes away nine football scholarships, and two more in basketball. I heard about this yesterday when I turned on Finebaum for five minutes, and he'd worked himself into a later about the need for UAB to drop its football program, entirely, and do it right now, if possible. A fair argument -- I have no idea why UAB started a football program to begin with. Anyway, bad day to be around their media relations office, I suppose.Speaking of APR, if you're interested in seeing how the SEC programs stack up against one another, al.com has a solid search engine for you. Thanks to Capstone for turning me onto this one.

-- Druid has a rant about the existing stereotypes about Alabama fans. And he does have a point, although we don't exactly do ourselves any favors by purchasing XXL t-shirts with giant boasts on them that make absolutely no sense, as personified by this post by the (insanely vitriolic and bitter) Deep South Sports. I've done a fair bit of traveling and observing various fan bases in my brief time on Earth, and I can with some degree of certainty that no SEC fan base has the right to call another fan base "rednecks" or "obnoxious" ... at least, not with a straight face.